Posted on 03/31/2012 3:49:46 PM PDT by radioone
Two years ago, liberals rammed an unconstitutional health insurance bill — Obamacare — through Congress without a Republican vote. They libeled opponents as racists and touted a new age in Washington. James Carville said Democrats would rule for 40 years. But the public hated the law and voted Democrats out of the House. Now the Supreme Court will vote 6-3 to nullify this unconstitutional attack on our liberty.
The spin from Democrats is hilarious. The liberals will go through them all: Denial, anger, bargaining, depression and acceptance.
First, denial.
From the Associated Press:
WASHINGTON — Vice President Joe Biden says he’s confident the Supreme Court will uphold the constitutionality of the health care law.
Biden says in an interview taped for CBS’s “Face the Nation” that “we think the mandate and the law are constitutional and we think the court will rule that way.”
Asked about the chances it would be overturned, he replies, “I don’t believe it will happen.” Biden says “I think we should focus on what is the law doing for people now and what would happen if Republicans should repeal it.”
Biden has started taking on a greater role in arguing President Barack Obama’s case for re-election, making an appearance on his behalf in the Midwest earlier this week. Excerpts of his Sunday interview were aired Friday on “CBS This Morning.”
Joe Biden is paid to say crazy stuff. Not so the bloggers at Huffington Post.
From David Paul:
I believe that the Supreme Court will uphold the individual mandate that is at the core of Obamacare by a vote of 6-3. Based on no legal theory whatsoever, I expect Chief Justice Roberts and perennial swing vote Justice Kennedy to vote with the liberal wing to uphold the act of Congress.
Denial takes many shapes. There is denial that striking down the centerpiece of the Obama presidency is toxic. It actually helps him.
From Bob Shrum:
Will a Tea Party Supreme Court guarantee Obama a second term?
The court’s conservative wing appears ready to engage in some despicable judicial activism on ObamaCare. Politically, at least, the justices are doing Obama a favor.
It is strategy like that which made Bob Shrum presidential poison. He’s been on the losing end of, what, 5 presidential candidates now?
More from Bob Shrum:
Largely missing from the coverage of the health reform case are the most important consequences of nullifying the law: The tragedy of tens of millions who would again be left without insurance; the plight of young adults now on their parents’ policies who would be thrown off; the desperation of those with pre-existing conditions who would be left with no coverage and nowhere to turn; the agony of patients who, because of lifetime limits on their insurance, would see it canceled just before the next round of chemotherapy.
Tens of millions were covered by Obamacare? He’s nuts! There are 7 million more uninsured Americans than there were 2 years ago. Liberals now live on Fantasy Island. Joining him is Nobel Prize-winning economist Paul Krugman. He’s in denial that this is a liberal plan.
From Paul Krugman:
Indeed, conservatives used to like the idea of required purchases as an alternative to taxes, which is why the idea for the mandate originally came not from liberals but from the ultra-conservative Heritage Foundation. (By the way, another pet conservative project — private accounts to replace Social Security — relies on, yes, mandatory contributions from individuals.)
Wait a second, doesn’t that mean liberals opposed the mandate at some point? Ah another diversion. Well-played, Krugman, well-played.
Then comes anger.
From Jonathan Cohn:
Virtually everybody agrees that a vote to strike down the Affordable Care Act would be five to four—a bare majority. And it would be a bare partisan majority, with the five Republican appointees overruling the four Democratic appointees. The decision would appear nakedly partisan and utterly devoid of principle. Appearances would not be deceiving.
Really? So he admits that Justices Breyer, Ginsburg, Kagan and Sotomayor are just political hacks…
Then there is bargaining. Then there is the smiley face that ridding us of Obamacare clears the way for the government taking over all of health care.
From Eugene Robinson:
If Obamacare is struck down, the short-term implications are uncertain. Conservatives may be buoyed by an election-year victory; progressives may be energized by a ruling that looks more political than substantive. The long-term consequences, however, are obvious: Sooner or later, a much more far-reaching overhaul of the health-care system will be inevitable.
Never mind that the decision would strike Obamacare down because Congress is not empowered to run health care insurance. In liberal landthis passes for logic.
More from Eugene Robinson:
But it’s going to be a close call. What if they strike down the law?
The immediate impact will be the human toll. More than 30 million uninsured Americans who would have obtained coverage under Obamacare will be bereft. Other provisions of the law, such as forbidding insurance companies to deny coverage based on preexisting conditions and allowing young adults to remain on their parents’ policies, presumably would also be invalidated; if not, they would have to be modified to keep insurance rates from climbing sharply. The United States would remain the only wealthy industrialized country where getting sick can mean going bankrupt.
Eventually, however, our health-care system will be restructured. It has to be. The current fee-for-service paradigm, with doctors and hospitals being paid through for-profit insurance companies, is needlessly inefficient and ruinously expensive.
Let us see, before Obamacare, we had 44 million uninsured Americans. Now we have 51 million. He says we will have 30 million uninsured if this goes down. Sounds like a deal.
As for “for profit,” isn’t that what his employer, the Washington Post, is supposed to be? A free press is a right. Using his logic, the Washington Post should eschew all profits and he should work for free.
Groupthink is alive and kicking at the Washington Post.
From Ezra Klein:
With health-care reform either repealed or overturned, both Democrats and Republicans shy away from proposing any big changes to the health-care system for the next decade or so. But with continued increases in the cost of health insurance and a steady erosion in employer-based coverage, Democrats begin dipping their toes in the water with a strategy based around incremental expansions of Medicare, Medicaid, and the Children’s Health Insurance Program. They move these policies through budget reconciliation, where they can be passed with 51 votes in the Senate, and, over time, this leads to more and more Americans being covered through public insurance. Eventually, we end up with something close to a single-payer system, as a majority of Americans — and particularly a majority of Americans who have significant health risks — are covered by the government.
The key word there is “eventually.” This is a long, ugly process that ensures a very large uninsured population for decades. It’s also a process that ensures there won’t be a coordinated effort to control costs for sometime. Yes, it might end up with a system that’s tilted further towards public insurance than what’s envisioned in the Affordable Care Act. But it’s not at all obvious it would be a good system, and, in the decades between here and there, there will be a lot of unnecessary suffering and deaths among the uninsured. That’s the real cost of losing this opportunity to insure 30 million people. And it’s a cost that too often gets swept under the rug in Washington’s handicapping of the political fallout.
Next will come depression. Probably beginning on November 7, 2012. But acceptance? Never. Liberals will spend the next century laying the blame for every medical problem on the justices who struck down Obamacare. They’re still angry at Ronald Reagan for his testimony before the House Un-American Activities Committee 60 years ago.
They’re still angry at Ronald Reagan for his testimony before the House Un-American Activities Committee 60 years agoOnly makes Joseph McCarthy seem more vindicated than ever.
While I want to see Obamacare (and Obama, for that matter) flushed, I fear that we are counting our chickens much, much too soon.
The libs are piss ants and nothing more. They are fools who know nothing.
I would like this prediction to come true.
5.56mm
I practice as a healthcare regulatory attorney in a major law firm and have been engaged firsthand in many transactions and initiatives designed to implement the reform law. What is truly criminal is the billions of dollars to date that have been spent (wasted) all because of the arrogance of Obama, Pelosi, Reid, Snowe and the rest of these progressive culprits. They should be ridiculed for the total disregard of the Constitution. Glad the left wing on the Court stands exposed.
Somewhere between “let Granny die a horible death” and a “free ride” for voters who do not wish, or can’t afford major medical insurance, there is truth.
I certainly hope that SCOTUS rejects this law, so as to let whatever adults are left in Congress are able to re-craft a meaningful policy that addresses this run-away health care debacle.
Responsible adults exclude Pelosi and Waxman!
1. Wild enthusiasm
2. Disillusionment
3. Confusion
4. Panic
5. Search for the guilty
6. Punishment of the innocent
7. Promotion of non-participants
The Supreme Court should vote Obamacare down 9-0. A 5-4 split would be silliness on such an easy decision....and this isn’t even tough. The government can just not have the power to force people into a contract, period...regardless of how much sense it might make at the time financially
There are plenty of ‘unconstitutional’ ways to address healthcare in this country but, it’s the Congress’ job to address the issue constitutionally. What’s most embarrassing is President Obama was a constitutional law teacher.
With all that said, the Congress does indeed have the constitutional power to tax us and then buy Healthcare for us as with Medicare. So, Universal Healthcare is still out there. I would much prefer to simply let the market place set the limits (and some reforms would help in this regard) as with other products but, so many folks simply get scared by this notion.
In any case, it’s never made sense to me why healthcare is provided through your employer. We should buy it like we buy car insurance. That way, if we want to cover our 30 year old son, birth control, and sex change operations, we could do just that at the local State Farm Office.....like any other product we buy. Really, insurance, like anything else, is no one dams business
In any case, Obamacare is unconstitutional and it’s back to the drawing board in my opinion.
No one is counting anything too soon, if the Jurists follow the Constitution, it will be struck down.
Your blood will be boiling before a min and a half!
That's a relic of World War II. As skilled labor became scarcer because a.) manufacturing had ramped up, and b.) most young men were in uniform, companies tried to compete for workers by offering higher salaries. The feral government wage and price controls precluded higher salaries. In time, a "compromise" was arrived at: companies could sweeten fringe benefits, and so began to offer life and health insurance.
It's a classic example of a government-caused problem made more complex with a government-proposed solution that gradually leads to more—and more and more and more—problems in due time.
You can bet your last nickel the obvious solution, removing government altogether from both insurance and medical care, is the one that won't even be considered in Washington, D.C. Letting open markets go to work on the problem would soon result in lower medical care costs, improved medical care quality, lower insurance costs, more freedom and profitability for medical care providers, and greatly reduced demand for government intervention. Do you doubt me? Look at the hardware and software computer industry, which operates in a largely open market. Every year, prices stay the same or are pushed down, quality rises, speed rises, and consumers are happier. If not for government, the same would be true of medical care and insurance.
I’m aware of how employer provided healthcare started. I just don’t understand why anyone ever thought it was a good idea. Your analysis seems very reasonable.
I fear you are right that no one will ever just turn insurance back over to the free market...including removing it from our employers.
Everything from bread to hammers to football tickets to health insurance should be set by the market place. Unfortunately, the average dude neither trusts the market place nor fears the power of an omnipresent government.
I wish I could say I was optimistic about our future but, I’m not. Even 1 Supreme Court Justice concluding that the government has the power to force the purchase of a product suggests how far we’ve fallen into the abyss. And, we’ve probably got 4 judges willing to turn complete control of our lives over to the feds...and these are supposedly ‘experts’ on our constitutional rights.
“”Now the Supreme Court will vote 6-3 to nullify this unconstitutional attack on our liberty. “”
Susan Estrich said tonight it will be 6-3 and liberal judges will win the day! She believes Roberts and Kennedy will be the 2 to go with the libs. She said Roberts knows they can’t get political about the decision in an election year. I wrote it down so I won’t forget. Just another hack!
“”companies could sweeten fringe benefits, and so began to offer life and health insurance.””
EXCEPT at that time the employers offered Major Medical only and it kept people from going to the doctors for hangnails and colds. It should have stayed that way.
Which enumerated power covers "the provision of healthcare for every inhabitant"?
SF
Exactly. The government actually CAUSED health care to sky-rocket, then wants to “fix” it by making it worse.
I’m still in the anger stage- Angry that the Republicans had control of the House, Senate and presidency during some of the Bush years and did nothing about health care reform, instead they spent like drunken sailors.
Also, you could use Lasik surgery as a prime example of a health care procedure becoming better and CHEAPER because it’s considered elective so government (and insurance) isn’t involved.
The free-market prevails every time.
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